Caliban from Shakespeare's The Tempest


Shakespeare wrote many historical plays but the Tempest is probably the most imperial minded of all of them. Written during the Golden Age of exploration, it loosely wondered about the impact of civilised peoples coming to terms with life on virgin territory. It had in mind the recent problems in Virginia and Roanoke, but was inspired by many other explorer's and sea-farer's stories. Prospero is loosely representative of a coloniser whilst Caliban represents a savage and an exploited one at that.


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by Stephen Luscombe